


"A Vault Hunter's Guide to Coping"

by AngelusErrare



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Questionable Coping Mechanisms, questionable everything honestly these three are kind of a mess, questionable interior decorating choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-02
Packaged: 2018-09-27 23:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10056248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelusErrare/pseuds/AngelusErrare
Summary: People cope with loss in different ways.Some people cope better than others.





	

**Author's Note:**

> blame EternalScribe for this.

People cope with loss in different ways. It doesn't matter what kind of loss; death, breakups, your favorite pen going missing (and you only set it down for a second, _god_ )-- chances are your methods of dealing with these things are different from, say, your grandmother's.

 

Brick dealt with the Sanctuary fiasco by becoming a bandit lord and terrorizing the Pandoran countryside. The Slab King persona was an excellent way to separate himself from the man who had needed to do mundane things such as _being responsible_ and _helping with plans_ and _not ripping people's faces off for betraying us oh my god Brick what the fuck???_

 _Brick_ had friends and people he cared about and some of them had hurt him for taking matters into his own hands, but he still loved and wanted to help them. _The Slab King_ hadn't been tossed on his ass by a good friend for killing someone who deserved it; the Slab King just really fucking hated Hyperion. The Slab King was just a bandit lord who could do some serious damage to them with his fists and his men, and that was good enough for him. 

 

Mordecai dealt with losing Bloodwing by getting stinking drunk and stubbornly refusing to crawl the hell out of the bottle. Oh, there was also the gun-waving and slurred threats at Scooter or whoever else was refusing to bring him another beer, but it was mostly the drinking itself. And the ignored lectures he got from Roland or Moxxi, the ignored pitying stares from Axton and his lot, the ignored muttering from everyone he inconvenienced when at the bar or HQ-- really, just a whole lot of drinking and ignoring everyone.

And dammit, Bloodwing was _everything_ to him until he met those skagshit fucking vault hunters he loved so much, so he was fucking _allowed_ to lose his shit and just be a fucking lump for a while, _okay, Roland?!_ Geez.

 

Lilith...

Lilith dealt with Roland dumping her by becoming a goddamned menace to everything _but_ Sanctuary. Okay, so Roland wanted to focus on the fight against Handsome Jack. _Fine_ , but they totally could have put everything into fighting the Jackass without torpedoing their relationship too! But fine. He wanted to focus on Jack, he could goddamned focus on Jack. _She_ would take care of the bandits (Brick not included).

Frostburn Canyon was a great place to set up a lair. Secluded, in the middle of bandit country, and no one around for company except spiderants and gibbering psychos. _Great_. Perfect. She could do all sorts of damage to the bandit gangs from here, and keeping them off Roland's back would help him deal with Jack.

As it turns out, months of complete isolation with no one to really talk to (gods knew _Roland_ wasn't doing much talking since he seemed to get so pissy with her for inviting him out there) is kiiiind of not so great for one's sense of... well... everything.

The high libido she could handle. She'd dealt with that for years before meeting the guys-- ~~a little~~ a lot of porn, a few hours of downtime when she didn't have bandits to deal with, boom. She'd be set for another few hours. She didn't need Roland-- or Mordy, though that had been years ago-- to take care of that.

The boredom and loneliness, she didn't take to quite so well. At least before becoming the Firehawk she'd always had arguments in New Haven to break up, or Moxxi's bar to hang around and get a few drinks, or Roland to ~~fuck the brains out of~~ badger.

(Okay so maybe the libido wasn't as under control as she wanted it to be, but she was doing damned well considering this was the longest she'd been isolated without a toy, her best friend, or her ~~ex-~~ boyfriend in the past five years.)

The first time a Bloodshot psycho found his way into her hideout, she slammed the nonsensical sucker against an outcropping of the rock wall and immolated him. She totally meant to take the corpse down from the wall and get it away from the lair later, but. Well. It sort of slipped her mind.

And by "slipped her mind", what she really meant was, _it looked totally bitchin' no way was I taking it down._

 

Some people cope with loss by drinking, fighting, or crying it out.

Lilith coped with loss by taking up interior decorating. With scorch marks. And bandit corpses.

 

Some people do not have the best coping mechanisms.


End file.
